


she shares my dreams, i hope that someday, i'll share her home

by daisylincs



Series: Agents of Birthdays [6]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Adorable FitzSimmons (Agents of SHIELD), Agents of Birthdays, Alternate Universe - Ski Jumpers, Alternate Universe - Winter Olympics, F/M, Fluff, Gift Fic, Happy Birthday Zuza!!, Meet-Cute, Romance, birthday fic, i didn't know that was a tag but it is PERFECT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:47:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26596285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisylincs/pseuds/daisylincs
Summary: When Jemma Simmons entered the Winter Olympics, it was with one goal in mind: to win gold. But when she meets her Scottish counterpart, she might just find a lot more than that.
Relationships: Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons
Series: Agents of Birthdays [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1886911
Comments: 17
Kudos: 41





	she shares my dreams, i hope that someday, i'll share her home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zuziuchna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zuziuchna/gifts).



> Dearest Zuza, 
> 
> Well, first of all, let me wish you an INCREDIBLY happy birthday!! You genuinely are one of the kindest and most welcoming people in the fandom, and I’m so so so lucky to have met you!!
> 
> Sappiness aside, it’s _true_ \- because when I just entered the fandom, I was pretty darn nervous about messaging anybody. I had always heard about these great DM friendships, you know, but I was stuck with the rather terrible question of how you actually _make_ one!! Goodness knows it’s terribly awkward to say something like “hey, do you want to be friends?”
> 
> But what struck me immediately about you was that - even though I had just spammed you with about twenty messages (and awkward, nervous onestoo, I might add) - you answered pretty much immediately with a warm welcome. You went out of your way to be kind to me, and to ask me for my “origin story” of starting to watch this show - something that I still think back to fondly as one of the most wonderful moments of my April.
> 
> Because getting this warm welcome from someone I had admired so much before I officially got an account - it just meant _so_ much to me, Zuza, it really did, and it made me feel so _accepted,_ like you weren’t just _saying_ “welcome to the fandom” because that’s what you say to a new person, but you really _meant_ it. 
> 
> And I still feel so warm and fuzzy inside whenever I think of that day and those messages - because it’s true, isn’t it? The AoS fandom really _means_ it when we say welcome to a new person.
> 
> For me, you were the one who helped me see that - and that’s still one of the most special things anyone can offer you when you enter a new fandom. So when I was planning out your birthday fic, I knew I wanted it to be _special -_ and since I saw you loved ski jumping, I just thought, well, that’s it.
> 
> Frustratingly, though, I just couldn’t seem to get it written to my satisfaction - what you see here today is, like, draft three. The first draft was just _bad,_ and we’re pretending it never even saw the light of day, and the second one was incredibly angsty. I’m still not sure how it happened, but it was about 2am, so I guess I have a vague excuse, lol. 
> 
> Anyway, I’m glad to say that I finally figured it out, and I really hope you like the results! I have to admit, though, that I haven’t watched the Olympics in a while, and while I did go hunting for some ski jumping clips (it’s so COOL oh my gosh!!), the logistics of the whole thing might not be _quite_ accurate. 
> 
> But, oh well. Long drafting process aside, I’m actually really happy with what I ended up with!! So from the bottom of my heart, _happy birthday,_ and once again thank you so much for being such a genuinely amazing soul. I love and appreciate you so much, and I’m so happy to be able to call you my friend!! 😍😍😍💖💖💖🥳

“Jemma, you ready?” Bobbi’s voice came crackling over the intercom. “We’re landing in five.”

Jemma felt a pleased grin tugging at her lips. Right on schedule.

“I’ll be there,” she called, flipping her suitcase shut and taking a last quick glance around her cabin. _All packed up._

She smiled again. Everything really _was_ proceeding exactly as planned.

But that was what she had expected, too, wasn’t it? Jemma Anne Simmons _excelled_ at preparation. And every second of this trip had been _meticulously_ planned out.

But it had to be, didn’t it? Ski jumping was one of the toughest and most challenging sports in the Winter Olympics, and you couldn’t just win gold without _thorough_ preparation.

And it was most definitely Jemma’s plan to win gold.

There were people who would say she was arrogant to even think that, but she _knew_ she could do this. Ski jumping was in her _blood,_ and it came so naturally that she barely had to think about it - the way science came to biochemists, she supposed, or physics to engineers. It was _right._

And she knew deep in her heart, with more certainty than she had known anything before, that these were going to be _her_ Olympics.

//

Team GB had put up its competitors in one of the most luxurious hotels Jemma had ever seen in her life - and yes, she had been expecting something like this, but she still let out a soft gasp when she realised the _taps_ were made of _gold._ The _taps._

This really was a dream come true!

She was so caught up in marveling at her surroundings that she completely forgot to watch where she was going, and before she quite knew what was happening, she had crashed right smack bang into someone coming the other way. 

_"Oh,"_ she gasped as she nearly tumbled to the floor, catching herself at the last minute with a ski jumper's balance. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry, are you okay?"

The person she had crashed into was a man who seemed to be about her age - a head or so taller, with light, curly hair, cheerful blue eyes, and currently an expression of absolute shock on his face. 

"Sorry," she said again, wincing. 

He shook his head a little, blinking. "Oh, no, it was my fault," he said, lifting a hand to run a little awkwardly through his hair. "I've just come in from the slopes, and I was replaying the moment where you just hang in the air -" 

"Wait, wait, wait," Jemma interrupted, her eyes widening. "Slopes? Jumping? You're a ski jumper?!" 

"Leopold Fitz," he said, sticking out his hand for her to shake. "Men's ski jumping champion for Team GB."

"I'm Jemma Simmons," she said, taking his hand, "your counterpart for women's ski jumping." 

His jaw dropped. "No _way!"_

"I know!" Jemma agreed, beaming at him. "What are the chances we'd bump into each other like this?" 

"Bump into each other, literally," Fitz said wryly, rubbing his head. Jemma winced. 

"Seriously, though, the chances had to be astronomically tiny," he continued thoughtfully. "In a whole hotel full of athletes from all countries -" 

"What a stroke of luck that we ran into each other," Jemma finished, catching his eye and grinning when she saw he was nodding along. 

"All the stars lined up perfectly, as my mum would say," he said, his gaze softening with affection at the memory. He turned to Jemma, his eyes a little wistful. "My mum is how I got into ski jumping, you know." 

"Really?" Jemma asked, her interest immediately piqued. 

Fitz nodded, his gaze still full of that soft affection. "I was a bit of a nervous kid, so she initially suggested it as something to take my mind off my stress," he admitted. "I've never been a big one for physical sports, but ski jumping's different." 

"It _is,"_ Jemma agreed, delighted that he _got_ it. "Completely different!" 

Fitz's eyes crinkled with smile lines, but his expression sobered quickly. "That's one of the biggest criticisms my dad had of me, actually," he said slowly. "I wasn't good at any physical sports. I'd much rather stay up in my bedroom tinkering with the designs of my skis." 

"You know," he said, meeting her gaze with wry blue eyes, "it used to be my dream to go to Cardiff, study engineering. But my dad, uh… he persuaded me that I'd never be good enough, and there was no point in even trying." 

Jemma shook her head slowly. "That's _awful."_

Fitz's eyes widened slightly, like he had just realised what he had said. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry," he said. "You didn't want to hear that. It's just that I'm always particularly nostalgic after I come back from the slopes, and sometimes I'm so lost in the magic of the feeling that I forget my filter for normal conversations -" 

He was babbling, completely awkward and apologetic, nervously scrambling for excuses. 

It was surprisingly endearing. 

"Don't worry about it," Jemma said, reaching out to brush his arm, surprising herself again with how natural it felt. 

"I know exactly what you mean," she assured him, pulling her arm away to gesticulate with her hands. "It's like the sheer _magic_ of the moment where it's just you and the sky overwhelms you completely for the next few hours." 

"There's really nothing like it," she said dreamily. "I could jump a thousand times, and I'd never get tired of it - it's like the world hits pause for one perfect moment when you're defying gravity, and you can scarcely breathe for the sheer awe of it." 

Fitz had dropped his hands, looking at her with blind amazement. "Oh my God, you just said it, _exactly."_

Jemma could feel a pleased blush creeping up her neck to her cheeks. "It really is incredible," she said, ducking her head. 

"It's more than that, though," Fitz said fervently. "It's… it gives you a sense of how insignificant you are in the greater scheme of things, if that makes sense? How you're just one speck in the endless sky. And I don't know about you, but for me, that helps me see that all my problems are really not that bad - not when there's a whole world out there, so profoundly beautiful and perfect."

He paused for a breath, then went on, his eyes shining with the deep, stirring passion of someone who truly loved and understood the sport. "It's a way to heal from it all, almost, to feel pure wonder at how incredible this world of ours really is."

 _"Exactly,"_ Jemma breathed, awed. She had never met someone who _got it_ like this before! 

"Exactly," she repeated, a little louder this time. "Healing, wonder - that's _exactly_ what it can be." 

"I had scoliosis," she told him, offering a quick nod. "I had to lie on my back for hours on end after my operation, and the thought of even beginning the physical therapy was terrifying." 

"I'm not much of a physical person, either," she admitted with a tiny tug of a smile at her lips. He smiled back. 

"But ski jumping changed that," she continued. "It was my way to recover after the operation, my way to show _myself_ that there was something I could still be good at." 

"That's _precisely_ what it was for me, too," Fitz cut in, his eyes shining. "It was my way of showing my dad, no, you know what? I'm _not_ hopeless. I can be _good_ at this." 

"And it's so _freeing,"_ she interjected passionately. "I wanted to go to Cambridge, too, you know - become a biochemist and whatnot. Then I had the operation, and I lost my chance - but ski jumping showed me that my life didn't have to be over." 

"That it could still go somewhere really good," Fitz finished. "That you could still _feel_ really good, and valid, and like you have a _purpose."_

Jemma nodded _,_ her whole body feeling alight with the incredible feeling that there was someone who _got_ it, who she could talk over and in-between his sentences and it felt like the most natural thing in the world; it felt _right._

Fitz smiled at her, and Jemma felt like something had fluttered to life in her stomach, something warm and giddy and so very much excited for what could be coming next. 

"Would you… like to sit next to me over dinner?" she asked cautiously. "I was planning to head out to the slopes now, but maybe we could… talk a little bit more, then?" 

She was hesitant to put too much pressure behind it, too much weight - but the thing was, talking to Fitz had been one of the most incredible experiences of her life. Right up there with the jump, even! 

She had just felt so wonderfully _understood_ \- and the way they could play off each other and complement each other was unlike anything she had ever experienced before. It was like they were two puzzle pieces just _meant_ to slot together. 

She could safely say that she had never felt anything like… well, like this _connection_ with anyone before. 

_And it helps that he's really attractive,_ added a little voice in her head that sounded suspiciously like Daisy's. 

Jemma squished it down firmly - that was _not_ the point. The point was, if she could feel _this_ happy and comfortable around Fitz after just one conversation, how would she feel after more? 

Fitz was nodding at her, beaming - "I'd love to talk more over dinner!" - and as the warm feeling in her stomach expanded even more, Jemma knew that she couldn't _wait_ to find out. 

//

And as it turned out, she had been absolutely right to be excited. Because the more time she spent with Fitz, the more she felt like she could just melt into this friendship between them. They just had so much in common - from Doctor Who (“the Tenth Doctor is the best, it’s just a fact”) to tea (“hotels can never get it right, I don’t know _what_ it is”) to the best grandmothers in the world (“you should _try_ my nan’s lemon cupcakes!”) It was effortless, really, how they could just talk for hours on end without ever getting bored.

She had never felt this _comfortable_ with anyone before. Like now, for example - with less than two hours to go till the Olympic final rounds, she would normally have been stressed out of her mind, but instead here she was, laughing so hard that she was practically choking. It was all Fitz’s fault - him and his stupid snow puns. 

Well, actually, it was his best mate Hunter’s fault - apparently he was the one who had made them all up when Fitz had gotten into the Olympics.

Jemma secretly thought that he sounded like just the kind of person who would work with Bobbi, and she thought it might be fun to set the two of them up once they got back home.

Fitz’s response? “Snow way to know if it would work.”

Jemma had had to hide her face in his shoulder; she was laughing so hard.

“There, there,” Fitz had said, patting her back with a solemn expression on his face. “Snow need to lose our heads.”

“Stop it,” Jemma groaned, looking up at him and wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. 

“I came, I thaw, I conquered,” he said, eyes alight with laughter.

She punched him in the shoulder. “I’m going to ignore you.”

“You wouldn’t,” he said with a dramatic gasp. “ _Surely_ you wouldn’t… give me the cold shoulder?”

“Noooooooo,” she groaned, her shoulders shaking as she tried to keep in her giggles.

“This is snow laughing matter,” Fitz said mock-sternly, patting her back as she held her middle, her ribs aching from laughter. “The collapse of a friendship? It’s a devastation, and snow on and snow forth.”

He would probably have gone on for _hours_ more, but fortunately for Jemma’s ribs, he was interrupted by someone knocking at the door.

It was Bobbi, and her expression was serious. “It’s time, you guys,” she said. 

Jemma sobered up immediately, pulling herself to her feet and biting her lip at the thought of what lay ahead. She was confident that she could do well, but it was the _Winter Olympics,_ and could she really say she was good enough to compete here? 

Yes, she had made it to the final round, but what if -

“Jemma,” Fitz’s voice interrupted before she could spiral, and he reached out to rest his hand on her shoulder, gentle and reassuring. “It’s going to be absolutely fine. You’re going to be _great.”_

Her worried frown softened into a smile as she placed her hand on top of his, lacing her fingers through his. “Thank you, Fitz,” she said. “You’ll be great, too.”

He smiled, squeezing her hand once before dropping it and stepping back. “There’s really snow need to worry.”

Alright, that was terrible, but it had been _exactly_ what she needed to hear in that moment. She was smiling as she changed into her thick winter clothing and skis for the last time this season, and the smile stayed with her all the way up to the slopes.

She could do this. She could.

She thought of Fitz’s smile, of Fitz shooting her a thumbs-up in their practice jump this morning, of Fitz squeezing her hand gently to reassure her. 

A soft warmth settled low in her stomach, comforting and steadying - and when the signal came, she shot down the slope. 

She had never felt more perfectly in-balance as she skied down the slope, more perfectly comfortable. The world seemed to have slowed down just a fraction so that she could see every turn before it came, and she had plenty of time to turn her body this way and that to give herself the best possible momentum. 

And when she reached the end of the slope, she was ready, bending low to give herself the best possible launch ---

She jumped --

And for a single breathless heartbeat, the whole world

paused 

as she hung there in the sky, the silent world spread out endlessly beneath her, perfect in its absolute stillness. 

Then, like the breath was being released after a lingering second, gravity took over and she plummeted down to earth, catching herself expertly on her skis. 

For a second, all she was aware of was the blood rushing in her ears and the wind whipping through her hair as she shot forward on the snow, keeping her body in perfect balance.

Then, like the sound being turned back up on a speaker, the sounds of the crowd cheering and applauding rushed back into her awareness. 

_“JEMMA!”_ she heard people cheering. “GO, JEMMA!”

And then one specific voice, rising above all the rest - “OVER HERE, JEMMA!”

She turned to see Fitz standing by the side of the changing rooms, just off the snowy track, jumping up and down like a crazy thing as he waved at her.

Turning her skis in her direction, she found herself grinning, grinning like she might never stop as she skied over to him.

When she reached the edge of the track, she couldn’t get her skis off fast enough, getting up and sprinting towards him as soon as they were off.

And Jemma had never thought she could find any feeling more incredible than that moment where she hung motionless in the air, defying gravity for a single perfect instant - but Fitz's smile as he ran towards her, whooping, beat it two-hundred-fold, hands down.

They crashed into one another somewhere in the middle, laughing and windswept, and as she clung tightly to Fitz’s blue cardigan, Jemma didn’t think she had ever been happier.

//

And if she had thought her jump was good, _well._ Fitz’s put hers utterly to shame!

He would disagree, of course, but here they were, both waiting for their gold medals. 

And the thing was… while Jemma was just bursting with excitement to actually receive this medal, the feeling was dwarfed completely by the simple and perfect happiness when Fitz flashed her a grin.

“Ready?” he mouthed over the sounds of the loudspeaker and the crowd cheering. 

“You bet!” she mouthed back - and then their names were being called.

Jemma wasn’t quite sure what made her do it, but she reached for Fitz’s hand as he made to go through the ceremonial curtain and onto the stage.

He paused to give her a questioning look, and she held onto his hand tighter, slipping her fingers through the gaps between his.

An radiant smile split Fitz’s face, and Jemma could feel an answering smile spreading across her own lips as he squeezed her hand, tugging her gently out onto the stage.

The number of people in the auditorium was _staggering,_ and in any normal circumstances, she would have felt completely overwhelmed - but with Fitz’s hand in hers, she could do _anything_.

Fitz gave her a small boost onto her podium, and she offered him her hand so he could pull himself up directly after her. 

The annunciator gave them a small, amused smile as she reached for their medals, accompanied by wild cheering from the crowd all around them.

Jemma got hers first, and the weight of it against her heart felt more incredible than she could describe with words.

It felt like a dream coming true.

But even that didn’t match up to the look on Fitz’s face as he watched her, or the way she felt when he received a matching medal around his own neck.

That felt like… well, it felt like she might burst from the sheer happiness that flooded through her.

And then Fitz turned and stepped over the gap between their podiums, ignoring the gasps of the audience, and came to stand right in front of her, slightly out of breath as he looked down at her.

Jemma tilted her head up to him, and she was still smiling, still pulsing with joy and disbelief and pride -

And Fitz kissed her, pulling her tightly against him quite regardless of their thick ski clothing and the mass of people around them.

The crowd burst into surprised cheers, and Jemma thought she heard the annunciator’s happy laugh, and a voice in a British accent calling out, _“that’s_ my best mate!”

But she ignored them all completely as she kissed him back, pressing her hands against his chest and melting completely into his hold. 

They broke apart after a second, gasping for breath, and Jemma found herself grinning, grinning so much that she thought she might never stop.

Fitz traced his thumb along the dimple lines in her cheeks, smiling down at her with an achingly soft, happy expression, and she stretched up on her tiptoes to kiss him again immediately, her whole body singing with delight when he kissed her back immediately.

She had come here for a gold medal, and, yes, she had gotten it - but she had also gotten something _so_ much more precious besides.

 _ **The End.**_


End file.
